\n<\/p>\n
To build the world of Backrooms,<\/em> Parsons packed up his life in California and moved to Vancouver\u2014where, for the better part of a year, he did what he\u2019d always done: modeled every environment in Blender. But this time he handed the files to an art department, which built them into a 30,000-square-foot maze of a movie set.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore we even were greenlit, I had conceptualized the whole environment for the pitch deck\u2026[which was] inherently one of the biggest selling points of The Backrooms<\/em> as a project,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n If there were any edits in the set-design process, Parsons \u201cdidn\u2019t have to put pen to paper at all. I could go spend 15 minutes [in Blender] and have an actual tangible thing to\u2026give actionable directions for.\u201d<\/p>\n The bigger challenge for Parsons, it turned out, was the script, and \u201cfinding an engine that was viable for people who don\u2019t quite understand this world I\u2019ve been creating for a while and where my audience is at.\u201d He and screenwriter Will Soodik landed on a plot centered around psychology, which to Parsons is \u201cone of the most obvious conversations that comes up in regard to the Backrooms.\u201d<\/p>\n That balancing act became central to Parsons\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n \u201cThe film is just an episode of the YouTube series,\u201d he says. \u201cIt is one hundred percent congruent\u2026. I sort of have made a contract with the audience, and I like to do everything I possibly can to hold myself accountable to that\u2026regardless if we\u2019re medium hopping.\u201d<\/p>\n Turning an internet-born idea into a feature film isn\u2019t exactly new. Many creepypastas have made their way into film and television before, particularly within horror; Slender Man<\/em><\/a> and Channel Zero<\/em> are prime examples. But unlike many internet-horror adaptations, Backrooms<\/em> isn\u2019t built around a villain so much as a feeling.<\/p>\n At its core, Parsons says, the film asks audiences, \u201cWhat is our relationship with the spaces we inhabit?\u201d The answer unfolds across 105 minutes of mounting anticipation\u2014intimate and disorienting in equal measure, less concerned with jump scares than with the particular horror of a space that never ends.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n